If with one hand you are reaching back, Dear One, holding on to things in your past, and with the other you are reaching out ahead of you, holding on to a vision of your future, is it any wonder that you feel like you are being stretched too thin in the here and now?

You should know, that which is for your greatest good, is and will always be, in the present moment.

The tradition of joining both hands together at your heart for prayer, for meditation, for your daily practice, is meant to be a reminder of this for you.

Be. Here. Now.

Beauty is not something that you see with your eyes. Dear One, it is something that you feel with your heart.

So how do you know if what you are looking at, if what you are seeing is truly beautiful, or if it is simply an illusion, a judgment, a product of your imagination?

Close your eyes.

If it disappears, then you know.

Take notice of the hands that you are holding onto, Dear One, the connections that you choose to maintain.

• Are they helping you up or holding you down?
• Are they pulling you back or encouraging you forward?
• Are they leading you in a direction that best serves you, or in a direction that best serves them?

If you are not sure, Dear One, let go for a little bit and find out.

It’s important that you know.

What if, in this moment, Dear One, you decided to love yourself unconditionally; to nurture yourself, to honor yourself, to forgive, care for and prioritize yourself, to accept yourself exactly where and as you are, to be a peace?

What if, in this moment, you decided to remember that you are worthy, that you are divine, that the reason that you are here is to have a joyful experience of being alive?

If you did this now, Dear One, would the next choice that you make, the next answer that you give, the next action that you take, the next words that you speak, the next thought that you think, be any different?

• If you want change, change
• If you want love, love
• If you want respect, respect
• If you want to heal, allow healing, strength, confidence and well being to dominate every word you speak, every thought you think, and every action you take.

Make the decision in your heart first, commit to taking action on its behalf, and then watch as the universe yields to it.

Contrary to how it might feel at times, you should know that it is you, Dear One, your heart,  your beliefs, thoughts, words, and actions that are commanding the powers of universe, and not the other way around.

Sometimes trying harder is not the answer, Dear One.

Sometimes taking a break is.

Trust yourself enough to know if this is one of those times.

How do you know for sure?

Ask your heart.  It will tell you.

Don’t allow yourself to become imprisoned by the choices, decisions and promises that you made yesterday, Dear One.

Your understanding of the world around you is constantly changing and growing. In every moment, the potential exists for you to know something new that you did not know the moment before. This new information is constantly changing your perspective – and this constantly changing perspective is a gift.  Don’t throw it away simply because you “adamantly” made a decision about something yesterday.

Today, your new perspective, your current vantage point, might allow you to see something that will make yesterday’s perspective obsolete. Embrace those moments when they happen, Dear One. and allow them to change you, change your mind and change your behavior. It would be a real shame to stand in one place all of your life simply because you told someone that you would.

Don’t let your desire to be right, or loyal, or trustworthy, supersede your desire to live your life to the fullest.  Don’t let the promises that you made yesterday stop you from living your life today.  The truth is that the people that you made them to have changed as well.  Their needs, desires and perspectives are not going to the be same forever either.

Honor yourself and your commitments as they make sense in the moment.  Don’t allow yourself to be ruled by a past that is already gone or a future that does not yet exist.

Learning to play the accordion, paint, teach, or split an atom requires practice, Dear One.

So does learning how to be more open, bold, tolerant, loving, trusting, and accepting of yourself and others.

Whenever you are practicing something new, regardless of what it is, we want you to know that it is essential that you also remember to practice patience too if you ever hope to achieve any level of success.

Not because we want you to expect or anticipate that whatever it is you learning is going to take a long time to achieve, because it may not.

We want you to practice patience, Dear One, because of your tendency to want to punish, judge harshly, or put yourself down when you encounter something new, when you come across something that you have not yet mastered, when you discover that you do not yet already know it all. (i.e. I can’t believe I missed that, how come this is so hard for me, how stupid of me to have not known that, and so on. You get the idea.)

Why does it matter?

Because you can’t judge yourself, be frustrated with yourself, or put yourself down, and grow in any positive way at the same time.

Hate is a powerful emotion, Dear One, one that is often felt very deeply.  And if you are feeling it, we are sure that you have your reasons.

Hate can be a difficult thing to let go of, even if you want to, especially when you feel that you have justifiably earned the right to feel it.

We will not ask you to stop hating, Dear One. We would never ask you to do something so difficult.  We would never ask you to do something that you do not want to do.

But what we will ask of you is that you stop giving hate so much of your attention.

What we are asking of you is that you not spend even one more minute of your  time, your thoughts, your energy,  your life, focused on that which you hate, and instead choose to focus on that which you enjoy, on that which you love, on loving each other instead.

You see, Dear One, hate only serves to bring more hate into the world, nothing more.  It doesn’t fix anything, heal anything, even any score, or make things right, and it never will.

But love on the other hand, has the power to transform/to heal anything.

Even hate.

You can berate yourself for stepping (or falling) off course, Dear One, or congratulate yourself for being conscious enough to recognize it.

But you can’t punish yourself and step back into the flow at the same time.

You’re going to have to choose one or the other.

So, what’s it going to be?